Category Archives: Building Community

The streaming video platform launched a new audio descriptions feature beginning with episodes of its original series ‘Daredevil’ on Thursday. The main character of the show is a blind lawyer who is secretly a superhero.

The survey will collect demographic information as well as information about digital habits. Its goal is to help the city create targeted programs that respond to the needs of residents. “We can see the impact, we just need to measure it now,” said Brittney Cofield-Poole (ME!), community outreach specialist for the IT department. She will oversee the collection of the survey. Finding out what people need from a municipal IT department is part of a larger four-year effort, Roper said. It was important to her to lead the department to become more community-focused and fill in digital gaps. via Raleigh will ask residents about technology habits | News and Observer News and Observer.

Today, Mayor McFarlane announced that Google Fiber is coming to Raleigh. Improving broadband speed and choice for residents has been a priority for Raleigh for some time. Raleigh applied for Google Fiber in 2010, joined North Carolina Next Generation Network (NCNGN), and completed the Google Fiber checklist last year.

Cut off from the Internet, young Cubans have quietly linked thousands of computers into a hidden network that stretches miles across Havana, letting them chat with friends, play games and download hit movies in a mini-replica of the online world that most can’t access.

Where better to place the reigns of innovation than in the hands of young minds! This year the the Carnegie Science Center in partnership with DiscoverE invites 6th, 7th and 8th graders to explore the realm of Urban Agriculture for their 2014-2015Future City Competition. This year’s theme is “Feeding Future Cities”. Students are invited to closely examine urban agriculture and develop modern solutions that promote sustainable food production.

Opportunities like these are a crucial part of preparing our future leaders to be creative visionaries. The deadline for schools to register is October 15, 2014 and they can do so at www.futurecity.org. Prospective participants including students, teachers, and volunteers should check out the Facebook page for more information and updates!

Building community partnerships is not an easy feat. There is no universal recipe doling out the perfect measurements for meaningful relationship building. Nevertheless there are a few basic ingredients that are crucial to cultivating a progressive rapport between stakeholders. This notion became even more prevalent to me at a recent meeting where myself and a colleague were meeting with an independent consultant interested in partnering with us. He had spent most of his career working in Corporate America successfully (according to him) building the capacity of the organizations that he worked for. After retiring from the competitive private sector he felt compelled to be an advocate for youth entrepreneurship. I in no way doubt that this individual was sincere in his desire to empower young people through structured opportunities, exposure, and sustainable skill building and retention. Unfortunately his good intentions were overshadowed by his inability to demonstrate an understanding of humility and communal reciprocity. How could this conversation have been better and more productive you ask? Well here are my humble suggestions:

Inclusive Dialogue: Create an atmosphere where both parties are engaged in a reciprocal conversation about mutually beneficial endeavors. One sided conversations do not breed collaboration.

Researched Suggestions: Don’t come to the table with suggestions that aren’t in alignment with current organizational goals. That makes it seem like there is an underlying agenda.

Turn Down the “Corporate”: Aggressive tactics can come across condescending and brash and builds an environment of mistrust.

There are plethora of successful corporate-community partnerships that work. I am inclined to believe that those relationships work because there is a meaningful transparency between both parties. A mentor of mine once told me that “Relationships are primary and everything else is derivative…”. In other words one cannot discount the importance of genuinely getting to know your potential partners. Remember relationship building cannot be replaced!